“You’ve nice arms,” he said.
She raised her eyes to meet his, and a faint, reproachful smile lit her heavy, fair-skinned face.
“It isn’t right, Honore,” she said.
“I’ve always wanted to tell you you’re pretty, Anais. But you know how it is — one’s afraid. . ”
She wanted to answer him, but the thought of her husband and her son kept her silent. She smiled again, with a greater warmth.
“Well, and so in the end I made up my mind, because I was troubled in my heart. . ”
She replied so low that he read the words on her lips: “You’re a fine one to talk!. .”
Honore gazed fondly at the ample, heavy body which in a few moments he would take in his man’s arms, the deep bosom tightly enclosed within the corset, the bellv swelling beneath the drawers clinging tight to the hips, the solid, sturdy legs filling the black cotton stockings. He was glad of this ripe fullness, and he found Anals more alluring than Marguerite.
He murmured to her in a low voice, and she answered him with tender silence. Yet there was an obstacle between them. Honore found himself less eager than he had expected, and he became disquieted and angrv with himself. He had not come there simply for dalliance! He moved a pace nearer to her, feeling awkward and without confidence. She drew away from him, huddling closer in her corner, her arms covering her body, hands clasped between her thighs. And suddenly he smiled and said:
“Wait. I’ll close the shutters.”
In the darkness Anals sought no more to escape, and when he drew her to him let her head sink on his shoulder. He carried her to the high feather-bed, happy that she should be so heavy in his arms, and their murmurs evoked other murmurs, from the wardrobe, from beneath the bed, murmurs filling all the room so that it seemed that the whole house of Maloret shared in their act of love.
Meanwhile Adelaide and her children were waiting close by the drawn shutters conscious of the deep and silent murmur as though it were a warmth in their flesh. At a more discreet distance stood Ferdinand, uncertain and in torment, expecting every moment to bring forth disaster. When at length his brother came out of the house he had a momentary glimpse of the gentle face of Anai's — also of lace-frilled drawers and black cotton stockings fastened with blue garters above the knee. And at this sight — did he really see it? — his eyes started a foot out of his head, but fortunately sprang back into their sockets. Appalled at what had taken place he turned deathly pale in one cheek, while with the other he blushed crimson at the thought that he had come face to face with perdition, alluringlv attired in lace-trimmed drawers.
Silent and grave of countenance, Honore walked sur-
rounded bv bis family. Juliette clung to his arm, and Alexis, Gustave and Clotilde ran in front, turning and skipping backwards the better to admire him. Adelaide glanced at him sidelong, exasperated already bv a silence that seemed to her heavv with recollection. As his chest rose in a sigh, she said acidly:
“You were in a great hurry to go there, I must sav, and what’s more you seemed to be looking forward to it!”
“It had to be done,” said Honore.
“It had to be done! Well, upon my word! The father of five children!”
Ferdinand was dodging round the outskirts of the family, trying to find a convenient station from which to question his brother.
“But have you thought. . what will happen if — if Valtier. . my God, if he gets to know about it!. .”
W’hen they were half-way down the lane lined with apple-trees Deodat passed them going along the road. Being in a hurry he called out without stopping:
“He’s dead!”
An inquiring, troubled murmur rose up from the family. The women crossed themselves.
“He means that Philibert Alesselon has died,” said Honore. “He was a good man, poor Philibert, a good republican and a man of his word. When he made a promise you could count on it.”
“Well, then,” babbled Ferdinand, “for the next mayor. . w7e might consider. .”
“Berthier,” said Honore, “or Corenpot or Rousselier, as the case may be. Those are the ones we shall consider.”
Ferdinand acquiesced with a submissive movement of his head, abandoning for ever the name of Zephe Maloret. They reached the end of the lane. But before they emerged on to the road Honore stopped and they clustered round him. He fished out the letter, which was somewhat crumpled after having been three days in his pocket, unfolded it beneath the humbled and respectful eyes of Ferdinand, and read aloud:
“My dear Honore, — The black horse was taken with colic at the beginning of the week. .
MARCEL AYM£ was born in France in 1902 in the town of Joigny. He completed his first novel, Briilebois, before he was twenty. Table attx Creves, published in 1929, won the Thco-phraste Rcnaudot award as the best novel of the vear. Among his other works translated into English and published in the United States are Across Paris, The Magic Pictures, The Transient Hour, The Wonderful Farm, The Proverb and Other Stories, and The Conscience of Love.
Government and Public Affairs
2 power and diplomacy by Dean Acheson i j call to greatness by Adlai E. Stevenson
20A&B DOCUMENTS ON FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS: THE ANGLO-AMERICAN tradition, edited by Zechariah Cbafee, Jr., 2 vols.
23 THE CONSTITUTION AND WHAT IT MEANS TODAY by Ed Ward S.
Corwin
27 COURTS ON TRIAL: MYTH AND REALITY IN AMERICAN JUSTICE
by Jerome Frank, with a new preface by Edmond Cahn 43A&B holmes-laski letters, edited by Mark DeWolfe Howe, abridged by Alger Hiss, 2 vols.
Economics and Business
21 big business leaders in America by XV. Lloyd Warner and James Abegglen
24 prosperity and depression by Gottfried Haberler, with a new preface by the author
34 THE DIPLOMACY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND OTHER PAPERS
by Eugene R. Black
History and Societal Studies
3 six medieval men and women by H. S. Bennett
4 the road to pearl harbor by Herbert Feis
6 ROGER WILLIAMS: HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE AMERICAN TRA
DITION by Perry Miller
7 the republican roosevelt by John Morton Blum, with a new preface by the author
10 travel and discovery in the renaissance by Boies Penrose, maps
17 MYTHS AND REALITIES: SOCIETIES OF THE COLONIAL SOUTH by
Carl Bridenbaugh
30 Ghana in transition by David E. Apter, enlarged, and with a new preface by the author
32 STRANGERS IN THE LAND: PATTERNS OF AMERICAN NATIVISM
1860–1925 by John Higham, with a new preface by the author, illustrated
40 the united states and Mexico by Howard F. Cline, with a new preface and an epilogue by the author, maps 41A&B the diplomats 1919–1939, edited by Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert, 2 vols.
44 china’s response to the west: a documentary survey 1839–1923 by Ssu-yii Teng and John K. Fairbank i Rome and a villa by Eleanor Clark, illustrated
8 THE MUSICAL EXPERIENCE OF COMPOSER, PERFORMER, LISTENER
by Roger Sessions
11 the grandmothers, a novel by Glenway Wescott